Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D.

Freada’s work is at the intersection of racial/social justice and tech. As a Partner at Kapor Capital (www.kaporcapital.com), she invests in women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color whose tech start-ups aspire to generate economic value and positive social impact. Kapor Capital’s investment sectors include, but are not limited to, education, health, and consumer finance.

Freada is the founder of the Level Playing Field Institute (www.lpfi.org), which promotes innovative approaches to fairness in higher education and workplaces. The Institute’s Summer Math and Science Honors Academy (SMASH), a three-summer high school program serving under-represented students of color, is in the process of scaling nationally. The Academy works to ensure racial equity within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The Institute’s workplace programs have conducted landmark research, including the 2011 study The Tilted Playing Field: Hidden Bias in IT Workplaces. Freada’s book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay combines quantitative research on who leaves corporate America and why, with stories of day-to-day experiences detailing the human and financial cost.

Freada co-founded the first organization in the U.S. to address sexual harassment in 1976. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Research and has conducted many large survey projects on perceptions and experiences of bias, harassment, and disrespectful treatment in workplaces.

Freada is also a Co-Chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact (www.kaporcenter.org), a Trustee of the UC Berkeley Foundation, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.